y teachings, you must prepare for battle, and
I challenge you to meet me in the field."

The gentle and peace-loving natives contemplated with consternation
these fierce Spaniards mounted on powerful war horses, animals which
they had never before seen, and glittering in coats of mail. They had
no religious creed to which they adhered with any tenacity. The
Nicaraguan chief unhesitatingly expressed his readiness to accept the
new faith, and in token of friendship, sent Gonzales a quantity of
gold, equal it is said in value to seventy-five thousand dollars of
our money. The Spanish historian Herrera, whose record is generally
deemed in the main accurate, says that the chief, his family, and nine
thousand of his subjects, were baptized and became Christians.
Influenced by this example, and by the glowing representations of the
rewards which were sure to follow the acceptance of the Christian
faith, more than thirty-six thousand of the natives were baptized
within the space of half a year. The baptismal fees charged by
Gonzales amounted to over four hundred thousand dollars.

While Gonzales was engaged on his own responsibility in this career of
spiritual conquest, with its rich pecuniary accompaniment, Don Pedro
sent two of his generals, Ferdinand de Cordova and Ferdinand De Soto,
to explore Nicaragua and take possession of it in his name. He assumed
that Gonzales, acting without authority, was engaged in a treasonable
movement. The two parties soon came into collision.

De Soto, with a party of fifty men, twenty of them being well mounted
cavaliers, encamped at a small village called Torebo. Gonzales was in
the near vicinity with a little army of three hundred men, two hundred
of whom were Indians. In the darkness of the night, Gonzales fell upon
De Soto, and outnumbering him six to one, either killed or took
captive all the thirty footmen; while the cavaliers, on their horses,
cut their way through and escaped. Gonzales lost fifty of his best men
in the conflict, and was so impressed with the military vigor of De
Soto, that he was not at all disposed again to meet him on the field
of battle. He therefore retired to a distant part of the province,
where he vigorously engaged in the work of converting the natives,
never forgetting his baptismal fee.

De Soto and Cordova established themselves in a new town which they
called Grenada. Here they erected a church, several dwelling houses,
and barracks for the soldiers. Th